The GOP does the Obamacare Sidestep

WASHINGTON, March 25, 2017 — Did you really expect Republicans in Congress to repeal Obamacare? Has the modern Republican Party ever repealed a Democratic entitlement program – ever?

2010 tea party protest in Washington, D.C.

May we dispense with the silly argument that there exists an appreciable difference between the two major political parties?

National Review’s Jonah Goldberg calls GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan the “grown-up conservative” who “understands both that we must get off the road we are on and that doing so is very, very hard.”

The implication is that the House’s other conservatives, those of the Freedom Caucus, who refused to compromise with the GOP’s so-called “grown-ups” on a repeal bill many called Obamacare-Lite, are unreasonable children.

The grown-up driving the car to Obamacare’s repeal decided to keep America on the road to financial ruin and health-care collapse, while the unruly conservative kids in the back seat yelled, “Are we there yet!”

Their frustration is understandable. You may recall that in 2010 thousands of Tea Party protesters surrounded Capitol Hill when then Speaker Nancy Pelosi came outside to gloat.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi takes victory lap among tea Party demonstrators outside the Capitol Building in 2010.

Later that same year, Pelosi’s arrogance cost her and the Democratic Party control of the House of Representatives. The Obamacare blow-back finally robbed Democrats of their control of the U.S. Senate as well in 2014.

Last November in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, candidate Donald Trump told a gathering of supporters, “If we don’t repeal and replace Obamacare, we will destroy American health care forever.”

Friday, Congress’s GOP grown-ups decided to destroy America, consumed by their irrational fear of Democrats, fear of disappointing the left-wing media and the nation’s emotional adolescents desiring something for nothing.

By failing to repeal Obamacare, Republicans will rekindle the animus of the same Tea Party protesters who punished Democrats and Republican compromisers (grown-ups?) in the GOP primaries of years past.

The House Freedom Caucus will not let Republicans in Congress get away with Obamacare “repeal” legislation that does little more than nibble at President Obama’s health care monstrosity around the edges.

The GOP needs to repeal Obamacare in its entirety before it even begins thinking about a replacement.